So stay tuned and we will be providing you more of that information.
Robert Marcus: Very helpful. Thanks a lot.
Operator: Your next question comes from a line of Travis Steed from Bank of America Securities. Your line is open.
Travis Steed : Hey Joe, thanks for taking the questions. I just wanted to follow up on something you said earlier in the call about on the renal spend pressure testing and evolving market conditions to maximize shareholder value. I assume, current market conditions, you’re still okay with the Renal thing going forward given you’re still talking about it, but maybe just talk about what’s left of analysis, the pressure tests, the Renal spend and kind of what you meant by that comment.
Joe Almeida: Well, as I mentioned before, it’s the same answer. We are very much into the preparations. We have the team in place. We have put all the things in place. The company is working very hard. It is a complex separation, primarily not from the point of view of sales and marketing and the company itself, but it’s all the manufacturing and distribution of it. So we’re working on that. We have put people in place. We always, always have the fiduciary responsibility and duty, as our Board has it as well, to continue to pressure test the related financials and including as a result of evolving market conditions in the interest of maximizing shareholder value to ensure that we proceed with that in mind. That is our number one responsibility when we do anything in Baxter. So yes, we’re moving forward, but we are always making sure that every step is taken and being analyzed and checked.
Joel Grade : And Travis, one thing I would just say, it’s Joel. This is also an opportunity to get me up to speed on all this. Again, I think there’s going to be very sound strategic rationale on this bid, and obviously the team is taking me through a lot of the financials and a lot of those things. So part of this is also helping me, bring me up to speed in terms of sort of all the financial implications that are involved, so just to add that to this. Thanks.
Travis Steed : Helpful. Thanks for that clarification. And then on 2024, I guess it sounds like you’re confident in accelerating growth kind of above this 1% to 2% that you’re doing now, but not quite back to 4% to 5%. So is there any examples you can give on reasons we should believe in kind of a little bit better growth in 2024? I guess Novum would be one of those. Anything else that could really kind of point out that? Can you give us some confidence that ‘24 revenue growth can be above this kind of 1% to 2% that you’re seeing right now?
Joe Almeida: Well, we’re going to anniversary some headwinds that we had in HST, primarily in the CCS business is one of them. Then we have some good launches in our pharmaceutical business, and we have continued demand increase for our SIGMA Spectrum pump, not even taking into consideration Novum on this, okay. Just by what we currently have today, give us confidence in our growth next year; ex-Renal to be higher than what we have today across all the three segments; MBT, HST, and Pharma.
Clare Trachtman : You know what Travis, why don’t I just add a little context here? Because the 1% to 2% you’re pointing out, remember, does have some of the Kidney Care impacts in it this year from some of those one-time payments we received last year. So that is kind of putting some pressure if you think about just how much Kidney Care represents of Baxter are contributing to that 1% to 2%. In addition, within our other segment, you’ll see that down pretty significantly. So I think for the base Baxter business, this is what Joe was alluding to, you are seeing nice progression this year. Within the HST business, I think you’re seeing some momentum within the frontline care. I think as we get to next year, within the CCS business, we’ll see some of that momentum going into 2024.
Now, with respect to Kidney Care in 2024, that’s one of the businesses. We will anniversary some of those one-time payments, but we will have to continue to look at some of the other factors that impacted growth this year, including just sales within our China region that have been impacted by the government procurement initiatives, as well as just the rebasing following the pandemic last year.
Joe Almeida: Just underscoring that the growth is in the remain part of Baxter ex-Renal is steadily improving and our MPT business has been growing above market every quarter and continues to do well. So I want to make sure that you appreciate the momentum that we are embarking and we have shown with the third quarter results what we meant by that.
Travis Steed : Great. Thanks a lot for that.
Joe Almeida: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Joanne Wuensch from Citi. Your line is open.
Joanne Wuensch: Thank you so much and good morning and thank you for taking the questions. I have two. The first one is, when I take a look at medical products and therapies year-over-year, the margin was down about 190 basis points. And I think someone was heading towards this question earlier. I’m trying to figure out the trend in that and if we should look at that continuing to be pressured as we look into next year. And then my second question has to do with some of your GPO contracts and pricing and how we should think about restructuring or renegotiating those and the potential for taking higher price. Thank you.
Clare Trachtman : So Joanne, I’ll first take the MPT question. I would say, within this quarter, there was a little bit of mix coupled with some increased investments within MPT, but we should see sequential improvement within that business as well as we go into the fourth quarter, similar to what we will see with most of the businesses as well, so kind of following the general trend of Baxter. But this quarter on a year-over-year basis, if you look at it, just face differences within mix and some increased investments.
